A Natural Wonder
The Zambezi River
The Victoria Falls
Formation of the Victoria Falls
People of the Victoria Falls
Enter the Ndebele
Discovery of the Victoria Falls
In Livingstone's Footsteps
Development of the Railway
To the Banks of the Zambezi
Development of the Falls
To The Congo
Development of Tourism
Development of Victoria Falls Town
Recent History
Further Information
Collectables

    
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To The Victoria Falls

Development of the Victoria Falls

The Victoria Falls Hotel



The following text is adapted from 'Corridors Through Time - A History of the Victoria Falls Hotel', researched and written by Peter Roberts and first published in 2016. Please visit the Zambezi Book Company website for more information.



With the line to the Falls complete the Railway Company arranged in early May 1904 for the transportation of materials for the construction of a ‘temporary’ hotel at the Falls.

"The material for the temporary building to be erected at Victoria Falls Station for the accommodation of travellers has been despatched." (Bulawayo Chronicle, May 1904)

It has previously been recorded that the Victoria Falls Hotel opened on 8th June 1904 (Creewel, 2004), and this may well have been the original planned opening date. A notice in the Bulawayo Chronicle of 4th June, however, appears to indicate that construction of the Hotel was still ongoing, with a party of workmen departing for the Falls on Monday, 30th May.

"A large party of workmen left by last Monday’s train to the north to complete the erection of the Victoria Falls Hotel. It has been rumoured that only a temporary structure is being put up, and by this description of the hotel many people fancy it will provide but poor accommodation...

"The management will be under the direct supervision of M Pierre Gavuzzi, of the Grand Hotel, Bulawayo, and he will have a staff of competent assistants, trained under him. A first-class French chef, a Chicago barman, Arab waiters and white attendants will be found at this hotel. The cuisine will be as fine as experience can make it... Electric light is being installed throughout. Each of the tables in the dining room will be lighted by separate standards, so as to lend a softness to the illumination of the room. Refrigerators, cold chambers and ice will certainly be appreciated in the climate of the Victoria Falls, and will allow of the finest meat and vegetables being kept for the table. Bathrooms with beautiful fixed baths, with hot and cold water, will also be found in this latest example of Rhodesian enterprise and to counteract any great heat in the summer, electric fans will be running to cool the atmosphere.

"M Gavuzzi has gone to the Falls, but he is not leaving us for good. He will still retain the management of the Grand Hotel, Bulawayo." (Bulawayo Chronicle, June 1904)

A notice from the Railway Company appeared in the same issue indicating a three week delay in construction:

"A telegram has been received from Mr S F Townsend, of the Rhodesia Railways, notifying that visitors would do well to defer their trips for about three weeks in consequence of delay in the hotel construction." (Bulawayo Chronicle, June 1904)

The Hotel was described as a temporary structure, to house the chief railway contractors, consultants and other eminent visitors involved with the development of the Bridge and railway. As such, many assumed it was to be dismantled and removed from the site once the concentration of railway construction moved north. Temporary, from the Railway Company’s perspective however, appears to have meant until grander, more permanent facilities could be erected.

Front view of the original Victoria Falls Hotel
Front view of the original Victoria Falls Hotel

A simple wood and iron structure, construction of the Hotel was speedily effected once construction materials and men arrived at the Falls. The main building consisted of a cast-iron frame, wooden panels and corrugated iron roof, all raised above the ground and fronted with a wide open veranda overlooking the Batoka Gorge, the view extending down to the Bridge site and rising spray of the Falls.

The Hotel was initially capable of hosting 20 guests at a time, with twelve single and four double rooms, together with a dining room, bar and offices, and was equipped with modern luxuries such as electric lights and fans and running hot and cold water. One of the specialist engineers sent out by the Bridge Company, Howard Longbottom, assisted with the installation of the electrical fittings.

Side view of the original Victoria Falls Hotel
Side view of the original Victoria Falls Hotel

The Railway Company leased the operation and management of the Hotel to the partnership of Mr G Estran and Mr W Scott-Rodger, who transferred Mr Pierre Gavuzzi from Bulawayo to oversee the establishment and operation of the new Hotel at the Falls.

After the delays in construction there appears have been no formal official opening, although an advert in early July indicates the Hotel was open for business.

"In consequence of the great demand for rooms at the Victoria Falls Hotel, P Gavuzzi notifies intending visitors that they should advise him of the date of their arrival in order to ensure accommodation and to avoid disappointment. Travellers should be well prepared with blankets for the train journey." (Bulawayo Chronicle, July 1904)

The lowest all-inclusive tariff was twelve shillings six pence per day. Many of the Hotel’s early guests would have been linked to the Railway Company preparing for the continuing construction of the railway line and completion of the Bridge, no doubt including Sir Charles Metcalfe, as well as the occasional adventurous traveller. The earliest known guest recorded as staying at the Hotel, Dr Arthur E Healy, a travelling dentist from Rockland, Maine, arrived on the first through train to the Falls on the 28th June.

"Dr. Healy was the only American on the first through train to Victoria Falls, and was the first American to register at the Victoria Falls hotel on its opening in 1904." (American Dental Journal, 1906)

It is also recorded that one of the early visitors to stay at the Hotel, appropriately, was Mrs Agnes Bruce, David Livingstone’s daughter, fifty years after her famous father first set sight on the Falls. Percy Clark claimed to have had the first meal served at the Hotel:

"I had the first meal that was served to a customer at the Victoria Falls Hotel. I ate it, I remember, in an annexe to the coal-hole near the kitchen. It was lunch... and I paid about four shillings for it." (Clark, 1936)

The rising numbers of visitors to the Falls did not go un-noticed by the Railway Company, Sir Charles Metcalfe and others soon referring to the Hotel in terms of accommodating recreational visitors rather than railway engineers.

"The line has been open right up to the Victoria Falls since June 20th, and the Hotel we have built there for the accommodation of visitors is a very comfortable one. It possesses every modern convenience, and from it there is obtained a beautiful view of the Zambezi Gorge." (Metcalfe, 1904)

The Victoria Falls Hotel Annexes
The Victoria Falls Hotel Annexes

Guest lists from late 1904 show people arriving from England, the United States and the Cape Colony. It soon became clear that the Hotel needed increased capacity to accommodate the growing number of guests, with visitors often having to use train carriages as extra accommodation at busy periods.

In September 1904 two old railway sheds were relocated to the site, with one - previously used as an engine shed at Mandegos (now Vila Pery) on the line from the east coast - converted into a large dining room, and the other into bedrooms. Soon after further railway buildings were added, re-purposed into accommodation with en suite bathrooms and becoming known as the Annex or Honeymoon Suites.

"The hotel, at the beginning, was simply a long structure of wood and iron containing a dining room and bar, bedrooms and offices. Later on it was enlarged by the addition of two large engine sheds removed from railway headquarters. One of these was converted into a dining room and the other into bedrooms. Later still two annexes of wood and iron were put up, complete with bathrooms. In the hot weather the rooms were ovens, and in the cold, refrigerators - but nobody grumbled much. After all, what could one expect in the heart of Africa?" (Clark, 1936)

Victoria Falls Hotel c1910
Victoria Falls Hotel original buildings from c1910, main building on left and annexes to the right

The early Hotel staff were cosmopolitan in origins - Mr Gavuzzi was an Italian, the chef was French, and the barman from Chicago, with service supported by Indian waiters. The young chef, Mr Marcel Mitton, known as ‘the Frenchman who became a Rhodesian,’ would become a famous figure in early Rhodesian history, trying his hand as a hunter and miner as well as a chef.

The Hotel’s first logo included the African lion and Egyptian sphinx, symbolising Rhodes’ dream of a railway connecting Africa from the Cape to Cairo, and fittingly readopted by the Hotel since 1996.

A Valuable Property

The value of the Victoria Falls as a potential tourism destination was soon recognised by the Chartered Company.

"In the Victoria Falls we possess a very valuable property, which is likely to promote materially the prosperity of the country. During the short period in which the railway to the Falls has been open, a large number of visitors has been attracted to them, and the tourist traffic which may be legitimately expected in the immediate future is likely to increase." (British South Africa Company, 1905)

At the Ordinary General Meeting of the Railway Company shareholders, held in London in 1905, a report was presented recording that:

"Lord Grey has told you that we have reached the Victoria Falls. We took over that line on June 20th [1904]... We have also, since then, effected what we call a temporary hotel which, however, is a very comfortable one. It has every modern convenience and accommodation for about forty people. It has most magnificent views of the bluff gorge. It has the electric light, cold storage, hot and cold water baths, and every modern luxury. It is run by a manager who was formerly at the Savoy and the Carlton hotels, and I am glad to say that everyone appreciates his efforts and that he has been well patronised since the Hotel opened." (Rhodesia Railways, 1905)

The immediate area around the Falls on the south bank, known as the Victoria Falls Reserve, was fenced as part of a conservation plan in 1904. The area included the Falls Rainforest and extended upstream to the Big Tree, Palm Tree Ferry and inland to the track leading to the Old Drift crossing.

The Falls Hotel was built on land within the designated Railway Reserve, together with the Railway Station, Post Office (with a telegraph line connecting to Livingstone) and Percy Clark’s house and trading huts. All were supplied with water from a small pumping station above the Devil’s Cataract.

News reports in 1905 still referred to the Company’s desire for a much grander Hotel at the Falls, referring to plans for the construction of a ‘mammoth hotel’ (The World’s Work, February 1905). The plans were still being actively promoted in mid-1905, by which time the Hotel’s capacity had been expanded to 80 guests.

"At the Falls themselves there is a Hotel where accommodation is provided for eighty guests. True, it is only a temporary building, but it will shortly be replaced by a permanent one." (Scientific American Magazine, June 1905)

Within Reach of the World

By 1905 the Falls were being promoted as a global tourism attraction, one South African travel brochure boldly declaring:

"The average man in the street has hardly yet realised that the Victoria Falls are within reach of anybody having a couple of months to spare. It is as easy too get from London to Bulawayo to-day as it is to get from London to New York, and the passenger with find himself quite as luxuriously accommodated as upon the trip across the herring pond." (South Africa Handbook No.32, 1905)

The Union Castle Mail Steamship Company, official mail carrier from the United Kingdom to the Cape Colony in South Africa, was intrinsically linked with the early development of the Rhodesias. The Company sailed from Southampton every Saturday, taking 17 days to reach the Cape. From there it took three days by train to Bulawayo and a further 22 hours to reach the Falls. It was not uncommon for passengers to travel this great distance only to stay a few nights at the Falls Hotel and then start their return journey. A 1905 promotional booklet produced by Union Castle Line encouraged travel to the Zambezi, ‘the World’s Riviera.’

Travel companies such as Thomas Cook and Pickfords promoted combined rail and liner travel deals to visit "nature’s greatest spectacle" where the traveller could "enjoy European luxury even here in the heart of Africa" (McGregor, 2009).

Next page: First Train Tourists

Recommended Reading

American Dental Journal (1906). The Dental Summary. Vol.26, No.5, p.229. Ransome & Randolph Co, Ohio.

British South Africa Company (1905) Annual Report, 1905.

Bulawayo Chronicle (May 1904) For Visitors to the Falls. 7th May.

Bulawayo Chronicle (June 1904) Victoria Falls Hotel. 4th June.

Bulawayo Chronicle (July 1904) Victoria Falls Hotel notice. 9th July. [CC]

Clark, P. M. (1936) Autobiography of an Old Drifter. Harrap, London.

Creewel, J. (2004) A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel - 100 years 1904-2004.

Metcalfe, Sir C. (1904) Cape to Cairo Railway. Dawson Daily News, 29th September 1904.

Rhodesia Railways (1905) Minutes of Ordinary General Meeting.

Scientific American Magazine (1905) Completion of the Victoria Falls Bridge. 22nd July, 1905, p.68-69.

Further Reading

Roberts P (2021) Corridors Through Time - A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel. Zambezi Book Company.

Corridors Through Time - A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel


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Discover the Victoria Falls with the Zambezi Book Company

'To The Victoria Falls' aims to bring you the wonder of the Victoria Falls through a look at its natural and human history.

This website has been developed using information researched from a wide variety of sources, including books, magazines and websites etc too numerous to mention or credit individually, although many key references are identified on our References page. Many of the images contained in this website have been sourced from old photographic postcards and publications and no infringement of copyright is intended. We warmly welcome any donations of photographs or information to this website.

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